A new order in the court? courts?
Mahoning lawyers seek independent consolidation study
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Bar Association plans to ask an independent agency to study whether the county’s lower courts should be consolidated and how that could best be accomplished.
In a recent survey of association members, the majority of respondents said they favor studying consolidation of the lower courts.
“We’re looking at it with an open mind, and we have no preconceived answers,” said Atty. Scott R. Cochran, association president.
“I would like to get an independent person to look at it so that we don’t have any political influences swaying what the outcome of the study is,” he said.
Among the issues to be studied would be how many judges, courtrooms and locations the consolidated operation should have, the economics of consolidation, the impact of consolidation on lawyers and their clients, and whether the judges in the new court should be full time or part time, he said.
Cochran mentioned two agencies that might perform the study — Youngstown State University and the Denver-based National Center for State Courts.
Since the association lacks its own funding to pay for the study, Cochran said he is seeking an outside funding source, such as the Ohio Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer of that court wrote a letter in May to Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams and all of the county’s lower court judges, saying he and the top court’s administrative staff are “acutely aware of the unsatisfactory conditions” at the crowded Youngstown Municipal Court’s City Hall location.
“We are also aware of the somewhat inefficient allocation of judicial resources in the various municipal courts and county courts located in Mahoning County,” Justice Moyer wrote.
“We have worked with the leaders in other Ohio counties as they combined their part-time county and/or municipal courts in order to provide more fiscally sound and efficient court systems for the citizens,” he added.
Justice Moyer’s letter was in response to Mayor Jay Williams’ letter to the chief justice asking him to convene a meeting of Youngstown-area officials to discuss reducing the number of Youngstown Municipal Court judges and establishing a metropolitan court system for the county.
Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly, presiding judge of Youngstown Municipal Court and a member of the bar association’s courts committee, said she expects a consolidation study will cost $40,000 to $50,000.
Mahoning County Commissioners Anthony T. Traficanti and John A. McNally IV said they favor performing such a study.
“Right now, we have problems with landlords and with leases,” Traficanti said, noting that the landlords seek to increase rents for the county courts. “We have buildings that leak,” he said, referring to the leaky roof at the county court in Boardman.
Traficanti said he’d like to consider putting those courts under one roof, but he said any reorganization of the courts would require an act of the Ohio Legislature.
“I think it’s something that definitely has to be studied and definitely has to be looked at in terms of any efficiencies that can be gained, any economies of scale that can be gained, and any cost savings that we might be able to achieve,” said McNally, who also is a lawyer in private practice.
Mahoning now has a county court system with four part-time judges. The system occupies rented courtroom locations in Boardman, Austintown, Canfield and Sebring.
Campbell and Struthers have municipal courts in their respective city halls, each with a part-time judge. Youngstown has a municipal court at City Hall with three full-time judges.
The part-time judges are permitted to maintain private law practices, but they may not practice law in the courts where they preside. Full-time judges are legally barred from having private law practices.
Judge Kobly said she believes the major issue driving the discussion of court consolidation is the public perception that a part-time judge would be a better lawyer in private practice than a lawyer who is not a judge.
The majority of association members responding to the association’s survey said they believe the county’s part-time judges shouldn’t be allowed to practice law in any court in Mahoning.
One of the part-time judges, who has a private law practice, is Judge James R. Lanzo of Struthers Municipal Court, who acknowledged that Judge Kobly’s observation about the public perception may be accurate.
Judge Lanzo said, however, any lawyer, who also happens to be a part-time judge, has no advantage in his court because he has a judicial title in another court. Judge David A. D’Apolito of the county court in Austintown said the same would be true in his court.
No client in his more than 30 years of law practice has ever told him that he or she selected him because he or she believed his status as a judge made him a better or more-influential lawyer, Judge Lanzo said. Judge D’Apolito, who has been practicing law for 20 years, said the same is true of his practice.
Judge Lanzo, who described the current lower-court system as efficient, said he favors an independent consolidation study to keep local politics and personality clashes from influencing its outcome.
Major issues in the study should be cost efficiency and court location, he said. A consolidated court should have three locations for the geographical convenience of all county residents, he added.
Judge Lanzo said costs could increase significantly in a consolidated court consisting only of full-time judges. Each full-time judge would be paid about $110,000 a year, and the judges would be permitted by law to hire full-time magistrates, each making about $67,000 a year, Judge Lanzo said. The part-time judges now earn about $67,000 a year.
“I think it’s a horrible idea. I think that you’d lose all accountability,” Judge D’Apolito said of the prospect of consolidating the county’s lower courts. “We have a county that’s made up of townships, villages and cities that all have unique problems. ...We all have separate issues,” he said.
Sebring residents shouldn’t have to travel to a centralized countywide municipal court in Youngstown for a small-claims case, he said.
Court consolidation has been studied many times in the past, most recently by county officials in 2003. That study recommended going from the current four part-time county court judges to three full-time judges but keeping all four court locations, and it concluded that costs would rise if its recommendations were followed.
“Certainly politics is involved,” in any discussion of consolidation, and the livelihoods of judges are at stake, Cochran noted. “I don’t know whether or not there’s been enough political will to implement the system change to get it done,” he said when asked why previous studies didn’t result in consolidation.
Another issue linked to the consolidation question is the relocation of Youngstown Municipal Court, said Cochran, a criminal defense lawyer who practices in that court.
Because of overcrowding, security concerns and the lack of space for confidential attorney-client conversation, the need to relocate that court is urgent, Cochran said, adding that conditions there don’t inspire respect for the law.
The Ohio Supreme Court is now mediating a lawsuit filed by the Youngstown Municipal Court judges against the city administration in which the judges are demanding new quarters.
The judges’ most recent proposal is to relocate the court to the City Hall Annex, 9 W. Front St., at an $8 million cost. Williams has acknowledged the current municipal court facilities are inadequate, but he said the city can’t afford $8 million for new facilities.
Cochran said Youngstown court needs new facilities regardless of whether countywide lower court consolidation occurs, but he said a new Youngstown Municipal Court facility could be built to allow space for expansion to accommodate more judges and courtrooms should consolidation occur in the future.
Judge Kobly, however, insists relocation of her court and countywide court consolidation are separate issues.
Describing her court’s current location as a “dungeon,” Judge Kobly concluded: “I am not about to wait another 20 years to get us into a safe, adequate facility because that’s how long it’s going to take with all the politics that’s going to be involved with consolidating courts.”
milliken@vindy.com